KuCoin review: licences, terms and gambling clause
Can you deposit to a casino from KuCoin?
KuCoin's terms restrict gambling without banning it outright, in Article 41(3); a deposit to a casino not licensed where you live can breach them. Its terms let it freeze or suspend an account without prior notice. 1 registration is confirmed in an issuing register. The terms name no contracting company. 3 points are not verified. 1 primary-source incident is recorded.
Documents last checked Reviewed by CryptoGuardz Register Desk, editorial desk
Disclosure: CryptoGuardz has no commercial relationship with KuCoin, earns nothing if you open an account there, and has not contacted the company or given it notice of this entry. Every statement below is either a verbatim quote from a document KuCoin publishes or a statement about a public register, and both carry the date they were read. Corrections go to the corrections page.
1. What this means for you
Consequences first, in the conditional, each one produced by a clause in a document KuCoin publishes itself. Every line links to that clause, quoted in full and dated.
- Your account can be frozen without notice if KuCoin decides it should be The suspension clause is discretionary and its list of grounds closes with a catch-all that swallows the list. The clause is quoted in full below.
- You cannot tell what happens to your coins if KuCoin fails, because the binding document does not say There is no insolvency clause in the terms. A reader is left to infer their position as an unsecured creditor from a document that declines to state it.
- You are probably not covered by the authorisation you can see if you are outside the European Economic Area The confirmed authorisation is held by KuCoin EU Exchange GmbH, and the entity that contracts with a user elsewhere is a different company.
- You may breach the terms if the casino you fund is unlicensed where you live KuCoin's clause covers unlawful, unregulated or illegal gambling rather than gambling as such. It is quoted in section 10.
2. What this entry records, and what it does not
This register publishes no number for an exchange. The payout score on the casino register has five defined components and a published arithmetic; no equivalent instrument exists here, and inventing one to fill the space would be a measurement nobody made. What follows instead is a field-by-field account of what was read, where it was read and when.
| Binding terms | Read in full 5 clauses captured verbatim across 4 topics, retrieved 2026-09-28 |
|---|---|
| Contracting entity | No company namedNo jurisdiction of incorporation stated in the binding document · no company number stated |
| Registration check | 1 confirmed in the issuing authority's own registerESMA interim MiCA register, published CSV, read 2026-09-28 |
| Proof of reserves | Published, signed by a third partySigner: Hacken OU, Tallinn, Estonia. |
| Insolvency outcome | Not disclosedThe binding document contains no insolvency clause. This is an absence in their document, not a gap in our reading. |
| Withdrawal test | Not measuredNo first-party deposit or withdrawal has been run against this exchange. It would require funding an account, which this register has not done. Until it has, nothing here is a measurement of how fast the exchange pays. |
| On-chain reserve verification | Not measuredNo independent reconstruction of the Merkle tree or of the exchange's wallet holdings has been attempted. |
3. What we could not verify
Every entry carries this section. The gaps are published because a reader deserves the limits of the check as well as its results.
- The legal name, number and place of incorporation of the company that contracts with a kucoin.com user. The terms name none.
- That Peken Global Limited is still the operator. The Department of Justice statement is dated 27 January 2025.
- Whether customer assets are segregated. The terms do not say.
4. Who you are contracting with
The counterparty named in the binding document, not the brand on the website. This is the company a claim would be brought against and whose insolvency estate a user would be a creditor of.
| Named counterparty | Not disclosedThe binding document names no company. See the notes below for what it does name.source · retrieved 2026-09-28 |
|---|---|
| Jurisdiction of incorporation | Not disclosedNo place of incorporation is stated in the binding document read. What the document does say is in the notes below. |
| Company number | Not disclosedNo company number appears in the binding document, so the entity cannot be looked up in any companies register from that document alone. |
The Terms of Use, last updated 24 September 2026, never name a company. The counterparty is "the Platform" and, in Article 7, "this Company", with no name, number or address attached to either. The agreement is said to be binding "between the Users and the Platform".
What the terms do name is a place. Article 101: "the User agrees that all activities conducted by the Platform with the User shall be deemed to take place within the Turks and Caicos Islands" Article 103 makes Turks and Caicos law the governing law, and Article 104 sends disputes to the Singapore International Arbitration Centre.
The company behind the Platform is named in a United States court record rather than in the terms: the Department of Justice describes Peken Global Limited, "a Seychelles-based entity", as the operator of KuCoin. See the public record section.
Article 103 This Agreement is concluded in accordance with the laws of the Turks and Caicos Islands, and its formation, interpretation, content, and performance shall be governed by the relevant laws and regulations of the Turks and Caicos Islands.kucoin.com
5. Registrations, claimed and confirmed
1 of the registrations KuCoin claims was found in the issuing authority's own public register. A confirmed registration covers the entity named on it and nothing else. The confirmed authorisation is held by an Austrian company serving kucoin.eu. The kucoin.com terms name no company at all, so the register row cannot be matched to the counterparty in the document read.
| Authority | Kind | Confirmed | What it covers |
|---|---|---|---|
| Austrian Financial Market Authority (FMA), crypto-asset service provider authorisation under Regulation (EU) 2023/1114 (MiCA) | authorisation | yes | Confirmed. The official ESMA interim MiCA register of authorised crypto-asset service providers, downloaded 28 September 2026, carries the row: competent authority Austrian Financial Market Authority (FMA), entity KuCoin EU Exchange GmbH, LEI 529900B4G0EGK7Z9KT45, authorisation notification date 27/11/2025, no end date. Services authorised: custody and administration; exchange of crypto-assets for funds and for other crypto-assets; placing of crypto-assets; transfer services. Operation of a trading platform is not among the listed services. It covers KuCoin EU Exchange GmbH only. |
| European Securities and Markets Authority (MiCA register of non-compliant entities) | adverse listing | not listed | Negative check. The official ESMA register of non-compliant entities providing crypto-asset services was downloaded on 28 September 2026 and searched. The string KuCoin does not appear in it. |
6. Proof of reserves
KuCoin publishes a proof of reserves signed by a party outside the company. It still says nothing about what the exchange owes.
| Signer | Hacken OU, Tallinn, Estonia. The Proof of Reserves Verification Report is dated 10 September 2026 and marked "Approved: Joaquin Girardi". |
|---|---|
| Standard | None named. Hacken describes a technical verification under its own methodology, covering proof of liabilities, proof of ownership and a reserves calculation. No assurance standard such as ISRS 4400 or ISAE 3000 is referenced. |
| As of | 2026-08-31 |
| Covers liabilities | noNothing in the exercise addresses borrowings, loan obligations, off-chain claims, or whether the set of user balances in the tree is complete. |
| Page | assets.staticimg.comretrieved 2026-09-28 |
While this report provides a point-in-time attestation of on-chain assets based on the provided and verified blockchain addresses and data, it should not be considered a comprehensive financial audit of all assets, liabilities, or the organization's overall financial position.assets.staticimg.com
This is one of two disclosures in the register signed by somebody other than the exchange. The signer is a blockchain security firm, not an accounting firm, and the report says so in its disclaimer.
In-scope assets: BTC, ETH, USDT and USDC. The collateral ratio table reports each as ">100%" rather than a figure.
The kucoin.com proof of reserves page links the PDF and states the data is "Based on data at 08/31/2026 23:59:59 UTC+8."
7. Custody, segregation and insolvency
The binding document says nothing about segregation and nothing about insolvency. That is the finding.
There is no clause in KuCoin’s terms describing what happens to customer digital assets if KuCoin itself becomes insolvent. A user is left to infer that they are an unsecured creditor from a document that declines to say so. The absence is recorded as Not disclosed: it is a gap in their document, not in our reading of it.
8. Freezing your account
2 clauses, quoted in the order they appear in the document. Read the last one first: it is the ground that swallows the others.
Article 36 Where the Platform deems on its unilateral and independent judgement that any event that undermines the security of trading may arise, the Platform shall have the right to suspend, interrupt or terminate all or part of the User’s services (including fee-based services) provided to a User under this Agreement, remove or delete registration information of such a User, seize illicit profits that the User may gain, without notifying such User and without assuming any responsibility to such User or any third party.kucoin.com
(8) other circumstances under which the Platform, based on its sole judgment, needs to suspend, interrupt or terminate all or part of the User services (including fee-based services) provided to Users under this Agreement and remove or delete the registration information on the ground of transaction security and other reasons.kucoin.com
9. Suspending withdrawals
Not recorded. See section 2 for why.
10. Sending funds to a casino from KuCoin
KuCoin's terms restrict gambling only where it is unlawful, unregulated or illegal. Whether a deposit to a given casino breaches them depends on that casino's licence and on where you are.
(3) providing gambling information or inducing in any manner any other person to engage in gambling;kucoin.com
Article 41 lists conduct the user guarantees not to engage in "for any illegal conduct". Item (3) restricts promoting gambling to others. The terms do not address a user sending their own funds to a gambling service.
11. Which networks KuCoin withdraws USDT on
18 USDT networks listed with withdrawals enabled on 2026-09-28, including Ethereum, Tron, BNB Smart Chain, Solana, Polygon, Arbitrum, Optimism, Avalanche, TON.
Read from KuCoin's public currencies endpoint, chains with isWithdrawEnabled true at retrieval. Source. Which DEXes operate on each of those chains is in the DEX register.
12. Amendment, liquidation, arbitration and governing law
The clauses that decide what the contract can become, what can be done to an open position, and where a dispute would be heard.
Article 9 The Platform may amend this Agreement at any time. Upon any change to the content of this Agreement, the Platform will release the latest version of these Terms of Use, as amended, without notifying each User one by one. If a User does not agree with the amendment of this Agreement made by the Platform, the User has the right to stop using the Platform services. If the User continues to use the Platform services, it is deemed that the User accepts the amendment(s) made by the Platformkucoin.com
Article 104 Unless otherwise agreed by other rules under this Agreement, both parties agree that any claims, dispute, or controversy arising from or related to this Agreement shall be submitted to the Singapore International Arbitration Centre for arbitration.kucoin.com
The Terms of Use contain no clause on segregation of customer assets and none on what happens to them if the Platform becomes insolvent.
13. Public record
Matters of public record, taken from primary sources and stated with them. They are not scored, because a historical event is not a measurement of how the exchange behaves today, and leaving them out while citing the sources would be worse.
Peken Global Limited, described by the Department of Justice as "a Seychelles-based entity that, since at least September 2019, has operated KuCoin", pleaded guilty in the Southern District of New York to one count of operating an unlicensed money transmitting business and agreed to pay more than $297 million, comprising criminal forfeiture of $184.5 million and a criminal fine of approximately $112.9 million. The Department states that "until at least July 2023, KuCoin did not require customers to provide any identifying information", and that Peken "agreed that KuCoin will exit the U.S. market for at least the next two years". Press Release Number 25-018.
14. Who should avoid KuCoin
Anyone outside the European Economic Area who is relying on the authorisation they can see. The confirmed authorisation is held by KuCoin EU Exchange GmbH and covers that company's clients. A user elsewhere is contracting with a different entity under different terms. And anyone who wants to know, before depositing, where they would stand if the exchange failed: the document does not answer that question.
Related entries
Or read the whole exchange register, the same method applied to wallets and to crypto casinos, the clause library at clause watch, or how this register works.